Saturday, May 21, 2011

come ride with me



It's coming down to the wire - only two more days of school before a much needed summer break. I am hoping that my summer is productive yet relaxing - giving me extra time to scrap and use my trigger finger to take snapshots of summer memories. My hubby and I are planning to travel a little here and there - I hope the time doesn't fly by too quickly!


Here is a little mini I managed to pull together and list on eBay. You can find the listing here with many more pictures. For this design I used Pink Paislee's "Butterfly Garden" papers. This line is to die for! So soft and shabby! It was so hard to cut it up and cover it, but I think I managed showcasing some of my favorites. I used lots of vintage goodies including vintage doilies, lace, music paper, jewelry, beads....the list goes on! The cover image was taken from an image from Crafty Secrets Love Scraps. I just love this image and quote - so darn cute!









I hope you are inspired and are having a happy weekend! Thanks for stopping by!


Sunday, May 15, 2011

tarty & tangy


I can't believe this week went by so slow yet so fast! I am approaching my last full week of school and welcome summer break with open arms. So much stress in our little field of education and I am sure we are not the only school feeling the effects of lower budgets and potential program cuts. I pray that we will survive this new "drama" and plan on relaxing my mind with numerous margaritas - lol!

But before I jump ahead to summer....let's enjoy the fabulous tastes of spring! A very special lil' lady generously gave me a large supply of rhubarb from her garden - thank you Sharon!! We don't grow it in ours, but I LOVE the tart taste of this yummy veggie. A true sour freak, I just love how rhubarb empowers just the right amount of WOWZA to awaken the senses. I decided to try a new recipe with this mother-load of goodness: Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp! And I must say.....HOLY YUM! The strawberries added just enough sweetness - especially when paired with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream. I took pictures to show you some of the steps along the way (but forgot to take one when we were eating it...sigh). It is best served warm...Enjoy!

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 5 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 4 cups sliced fresh strawberries
  • 4 cups diced rhubarb
  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1 cup butter
  • 1 cup rolled oats

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
  2. In a large zip loc bag, toss white sugar, 5 tablespoons flour, strawberries, and rhubarb. Place the mixture in a 9x13 inch baking dish.
  3. Mix 1 1/2 cups flour, brown sugar, butter, and oats until crumbly. You may want to use a pastry blender for this. Crumble on top of the rhubarb and strawberry mixture.
  4. Bake 45 minutes in the preheated oven, or until crisp and lightly browned.

Enjoy!

Friday, May 6, 2011

TWAG blog hop winner


A humungous congrats tooooo.....

Kathy (and Lucky)!

You are the winner of my yummy paper and embellishment bundle! Wahoo!!

Thank you so much to all who participated and played in TWAG's first blog hop. We really appreciate you support and can't wait to share more goodies with you soon!

Be sure to check our Facebook page to see if you have won the handmade TWAG TAG bundle! I'll give you a hint...her name begins with a "G" and ends in an "loria".

xoxo

Sunday, May 1, 2011

The Working Artist Group May Blog Hop

Welcome to The Working Artist Group's first Blog Hop! We are so happy you decided to join us!


For our first hop we have six designers sharing their talent with you - each of whom has designed a gorgeous handmade tag for one lucky winner! For a chance to win all six designer tags, all you have to do is hop to each persons blog on the list below and leave a comment. Be sure to comment at each persons blog as this increases your chances to win the tag bundle!! For an extra entry, become a fan of our Facebook page listed at the bottom of the hop! Here is a picture of the tag I designed for our grand prize winner:


Additionally, each designer has some extra goodies they will be giving away! For my blog candy, I have selected:


  • 6 gorgeous double sided papers by Autumn Leaves
  • 1 mini chipboard album, spiral bound
  • 3 coordinating bundles of seam binding (raspberry, lime, and lemon chiffon)
  • 2 vintage clothespins
  • 2 vintage dominoes
  • 2 vintage bobbins
  • 1 vintage doily
  • 1 section of lime/white eyelet lace trim
  • 3 library tags
  • 1 tea stained tag
  • a handful of white buttons



In order to win my candy I would love for you to leave a brief comment and become a follower of my blog (if you aren't already). You can either follow via Facebook, email, or both!

The winners of each designer's blog and the tag bundle grand prize will be announced Friday, May 6th on TWAG's FB page and through follow up blog posts from each of our participating designers. So you have five days to hop to each of our blogs! Please make sure you provide an email address or other way of contact when you leave a comment - we want to make sure we get your goodies to you!!

So thank you so much for supporting TWAG's first blog hop! We look forward to inspire you and hope to build connections through a pastime we all love so much!

Now get hopping!

Mary Hamer (pieces-of-home) (<----that's me!)
Samantha Shade (shade82900)
Margaret Persinger (304maggs61)
Cathy Garcia (cat2jona)
Kim Edwards (scrappychicbykim)
Kim Hoffman (anniegetyourgluegun)

TWAG's FACEBOOK Page

xoxo

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

it's coming....



The all time first TWAG blog hop! Mark your calendars for May 1st to hop hop hop along our trail. You will have a chance to win fabulous prizes at each stop along the way. And one mega prize created by some of our wonderful artists!

If you don't already know, The Working Artist Group (TWAG) is a group of fun ladies who create beautiful pieces of scrapbook art and sell their works on eBay. We love what we do - creating pieces to house your wonderful memories. Here are some of the current listings.

We hope you will join us for the five day hop starting this Friday!

And now for a little yummy to add to your recipe collection:

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Truffles

Yield: 3-4 dozen

Prep Time: 1 hour

Total Time: 2 1/2 hours

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup milk or soy milk
1 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

14 oz dark chocolate candy coating

Directions:

Beat butter and sugars and in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add milk and vanilla. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt and mix on low speed (or by hand) until incorporated. Stir in chocolate chips.

Cover and chill dough for 1 hour.

When dough is firm enough to handle (it may help to lightly flour your hands), form dough into 1" balls and arrange on a baking sheet lined with waxed paper. Place sheets in freezer and let chill for 30 minutes.

Melt chocolate candy coating in a double boiler or in microwave according to package directions. Using forks or a dipping tool, dip cookie balls into candy coating to cover. Tap fork on side of pan to remove any excess coating, and return to waxed paper-lined baking sheets. Chill until set. Store, chilled, in an airtight container for up to 1 week (though good luck making them last that long).


via love&oliveoil

Delish!!
xoxo


Monday, April 25, 2011

Crafty Secrets Design Team Challenge (Paper Piecing)


Hello my sweet friends!

I hope you had a relaxing Easter weekend with family and loved ones. It was a lovely weekend in the midwest. Chilly - but the sun was shining and the birds were singing. Just one more month until I get my much needed summer break. Even though our little school library is open in the summer once each week, it will still be nice to have some time to travel and work in my lil' studio without a care in the world.


This will be my last challenge with Crafty Secrets. I am so grateful to have been part of such a wonderful group of talented ladies. A big thank you to Sandy for this opportunity to show my passion through a beautiful array of vintage scraps, stamps, and goodies.



For this challenge, I decided to make a card - fit for a prince! Since our challenge was "paper piecing", I thought this little cutie would be the perfect stamp to show off what you can do by stamping and layering papers instead of coloring. The papers add depth and dimension which bring this little man and his puppy to life. This technique is perfect for using those teeny tiny scraps of paper that you can't seem to part with....I am a true paper hoarder - lol!


Boy:
1. First, you need to stamp your image on your bottom layer. In my case, I used a creamy blush cardstock which I then colored and shaded with flesh tone copics on all the exposed skin areas. This is your base cut or foundation that you will attach the rest of the pieces.
2. Ink head of stamp and stamp on pale yellow cardstock....or hair color of your choice. Cut out and adhere on base cut.
3. Stamp shirt on patterned paper. Cut and adhere to base.
4. Stamp overalls on pale blue (or even jean fabric!), cut and attach to base.
5. Stamp shirt again on white cardstock. Then cut the collar and cuffs. Attach to patterned shirt.
6. Color socks with copics or colored pencils.
7. Stamp and cut shoes from brown cardstock. Adhere to base.
8. Stamp and cut pocket out of coordinating patterned paper.
9. Add shading with copics/colored pencils. I inked edges of certain pieces with a soft coffee chalk ink to give shadow.


Puppy:
1. Stamp puppy on the color you would like him mainly to be. In this case, I used a light beige.
2. Stamp puppy on dark brown and cut out ears, spots, etc.
3. Stamp the puppy's neck on the color cardstock you would like the collar to be ( I used the pale blue of the overalls). Cut and adhere.
4. For texture, I used a nut brown flower soft. It made this little puppy soft and fuzzy!



Supplies:
Stamps: Crafty Secrets Little Boy
Paper: Melissa Frances and Making Memories (plus assorted scraps for paper piecing)
Pin: Maya Road
Vintage: ribbon, lace, button, string, book paper, flower applique
Punch: Marvy & Martha Stewart
Other: paper doily, colored pencils, co

Thank you so much for stopping by! Please take a moment to see what the rest of the Design Team created!

xoxo









Vicki Chrisman Team Leader

Pam Hooten

Heidi Blankenship

Linda Duke

Michele Kovack

Flo Teixeira from France

Melissa Phillips

Julie Campbell

Mary Hamer

April Guest Designer: Sophie La Fontaine
(you can see Sopies work on the Heartwarming Vintage Blog)

Heartwarming Vintage Blog

Crafty Secrets Website





Sunday, April 17, 2011

pretty purple mini


Happy Sunday my friends!

I finally finished my pretty little purple mini to share with you! For this design, I used Basic Grey's "Wisteria" paper line for all the patterned paper - you can see I've been hoarding this pad for a while now! This is my first little project as a Design Team member for More Paper Than Shoes (MPTS) and I just LOVE Anna's flowers! I used a flower spray complete with three large purple blooms, mini coordinating flowers and gorgeous crisp leaves. Each flower (even the tiny ones) have gorgeous purple pollen centers. This spray made my cover a cinch to put together! You can see what Anna has for sale here at her Etsy shop.



This mini is ten total pages (including front & back covers) and filled with goodies! I made 8 pocket areas tucked with photo mats and journaling tags - 11 in all. I used a lot of vintage ephemera - especially silver and rhinestones! For graphics, I tucked a few Crafty Secrets scraps throughout the album. Scraps are from Birds & Blossoms and Sew Nice. I really liked the silver against the purples and blues. Thick satin ribbon binds all the lovelies together. Another chunky monkey - it stands all by itself - no problem!






This album goes on sale tonight on eBay. You can see the full listing here with many more pictures.

I am hoping to have another post before the weekend (gosh I've been slow!) But just in case, here are some yummies for your tummies to drool over before Easter. I know mine will!





Thanks again for stopping by!

xoxo













Cadbury Creme Cupcakes Source: flickr.com via Mary on Pinterest